Frograck: Welcome to episode of the Frog Rack podcast. Amongst all the amphibians that hobbyists keep in captivity, salamanders are the least common. Overshadowed by brightly colored frogs and even by newts that display well in an aquarium, salamanders are often overlooked. They are always a welcome sight for field herpers who are flipping logs, but their cryptic nature isn't a very desirable trait for a terrarium inhabitant. For those hobbyists who take on captive husbandry of salamanders anyway, the experience of discovering that these reclusive amphibians lead a more complex life than we first thought is very rewarding. Many of you already know that the Eastern United States is a global diversity hotspot for salamander species. Today's guest has embraced his fascination with salamanders by keeping and breeding them in captivity. Welcome Joe from Joe's Salamanders to today's episode of the Frog Rack podcast. Thanks for joining us, Joe. Joe's Salamanders: Hi, how you doing? Frograck: doing all right, tell us a little bit about yourself how you came to appreciate salamanders. Joe's Salamanders: Well, I'm 47 years old. I was born in Florida ⁓ lived down there for 40 years. I've been into exotics all my life. Growing we had a lot of exotics. I lived near a warehouse, a reptile warehouse about 30 years ago called Glades Herp. And these guys used to drive to Miami once a week and pick up ⁓ orders they had everything like back then, anything you could think of. So we had everything when I was growing up. Monitor lizards, geckos, rat snakes. ⁓ bred all these animals, got eggs from all of them, babies raised them. I dabbled with salamanders a little bit when I was in my teens, but we don't really have too many salamander species in South Florida where I grew up, because it gets so hot down there. There are a few species of ⁓ siren and two-toed ⁓ pretty common down there where i was at but never never saw salamanders you'd have to drive five or six hours north at least to see something like that ⁓ you know i decided to move up north about six years ago things were getting too busy down in florida too expensive ⁓ and my family lives up here now i didn't have any family left down there And my sister and my mother bought a really nice piece of property up here about 10 years ago. And there's a nice little apartment on this property the previous owner had their mother-in-law living in this apartment. So I moved into this apartment and because my family owns the property, they allow me to have all these outdoor enclosures around the patio and outside. And I got plenty of room to grow ⁓ the rent's cheap. It's very affordable. So I'm pretty much operating as a hobbyist still somewhere in between a hobbyist and a business kind of like making that transition. I moved up here about five, six years ago and I knew when I moved up here I would get into Salamanders just because of the weather like the environment here in North Carolina where I live now I'm in the Piedmont. I'm on the east side of Charlotte the weather's Frograck: Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: Perfect here. It's very temperate. You know doesn't snow too much doesn't get too hot very very temperate weather here I did a lot of animals outside when I lived in Florida too I had some ponds outside with some exotic fish I got into exotic fish for a couple years and had a house down there with a few ponds outdoors a lot of aquariums and That's what I was actually doing before I moved up here was aquariums Frograck: Okay. Joe's Salamanders: And I got out of the aquariums and got into the salamanders when I moved up here. Frograck: Cool, wow, so you definitely have experience in the reptile world, keeping and a whole variety of stuff. What about salamanders attracts you? Like what about their care compared to lizards, geckos, ⁓ and even something like a dart frog? What do you like about keeping salamanders? Joe's Salamanders: Well, I like them because they are so niche and they're not as popular. can ⁓ be pretty colorful, ⁓ nice eye candy to look at, you know. They hide, most species hide quite a bit, but there are some species that are quite active. You just to know which species you're getting and you can set up a nice display. Great pets, ⁓ you know. Some species like the tiger salamanders even have a lot of character, you know, they're almost like a reptile in certain ways. Frograck: Yeah, for sure. us an idea of what species you keep or have experience with so that for the rest of our conversation, the audience can sort of picture what sort of species, what sort of salamanders we're talking about. Joe's Salamanders: So I started off working with native species. ⁓ got quite a few species of Ambistima here that I work with. The marbled salamanders, the spotted salamanders, tiger salamanders. Now the salamanders I have are western tigers because the eastern tigers in my range are protected on a state level here so I cannot work with those. But I've got western tigers that I breed. The Ambistima. Mavorium melanisticum species of the western tiger. We got about four or five different species of western tiger. I believe Maybe a couple more that are unnamed but ⁓ several species of western I can't work with any of the Easter and so I got a source those animals from outside of my range You know if I want to work with them ⁓ I work with several species of newts I've got crested newts. I'm working with that. I've bred some Frograck: right on. Joe's Salamanders: Spanish red newts I've bred that I'm working with And I've kept several species as pets I've kept some some of the woodland salamanders like the plethodons Plethodontes some spring salamanders and some red salamanders some of the stream salamanders that I've kept as pets And You know, I've been working with most of these animals for like six, seven years now almost. Probably going on seven years. Frograck: Cool, great, yeah, yeah. Let's go over some basics of husbandry so that audience members can imagine would keeping a salamander fit, would they be able to give it the right care, would they ⁓ be able to meet the parameters needed, either indoor or outdoor. So give us an idea, let's talk first about indoor keeping. What sort of enclosures are suitable for salamanders? Joe's Salamanders: Okay. I aquariums and tubs primarily, like Rubbermaid tubs with lids. The humidity in my range is actually quite perfect, so you don't really have to worry about humidity too much, but you need good ventilation. Some need better ventilation than others. You can have problems with bacteria and mold, and humidity can actually get too high if you don't have proper ventilation. ⁓ Frograck: Right. Joe's Salamanders: They enjoy substrates they can burrow down into potting soil, crushed coconut bark is used often. People often use a mixture of different substrates. Smagno moss and peat moss is very good substrates. I use a lot of smagno moss. My typical substrate set up is a mixture between potting soil, coconut fiber, and smagno moss. ⁓ I like to mix the coconut fiber and the potting soil for a bottom layer, then put shmagnum moss across the top. moss does really good for holding humidity and enclosures at the proper level. Like humidity in this area is really good. You don't need any kind of misters or humidifiers or any kind of like mechanical equipment. But you know, if you don't give it enough ventilation, you gotta make sure that you're controlling it as best you can. if you just give it access to the open air here, it's perfect. know, that open air in this region's fine. So you can use like a screen lid. You can use a Rubbermaid lid with a bunch of vents. And if you wanna poke holes or cut a vent and glue a vent into a lid for a Rubbermaid container, all those options will work fine. They don't need any light for the most part. can use light if you want to use live micro biomes like bioactivity ⁓ photosynthesis. Lighting definitely encouraged for a healthier environment. Your whole whether it's aquatic or terrestrial, your whole system going to benefit from light in certain ways. A terrestrial system is going to benefit from UV sterilization to a certain degree. and aquatic systems are going to benefit from photosynthesis especially if you've got live plants growing to help control the water water quality so photosynthesis does play a good role in live bioactive setups sorry my dog's hearing I should have put him away but he's ⁓ kind of causing a little ruckus here he's a big dog Frograck: Yeah. No problem, no problem. So living up north, it's common that basically every single house where I live has a basement. And so I know basements are a good place to keep salamanders, but other parts of the country, maybe even where you are at, basements aren't the norm. And I bring that up because basements tend to stay cool. And I know salamanders like cooler temperatures. What do you do to meet the right temperature requirements for your salamanders? Joe's Salamanders: So we actually have basements pretty common in my area. And this house is kind of built on the hill. And the room I have my salamanders in, it's actually like a basement room. So the back half of the apartment is kind of like underground, but the front half of the apartment is ground level. So I said, it's kind of built on a slope. But got a... Frograck: Okay. Joe's Salamanders: AC I just did some renovations around here and ⁓ I put an air conditioner window unit in the room with the salamanders I didn't have any doors on the on the rooms here I got doors on all the rooms now so I can close the doors and control the temperature So I got ⁓ my my ice I do isopods to that was something I forgot to mention I'm really into isopods and springtails and I keep those guys in the bathroom so I can keep them a little bit warmer than the salamanders. The salamanders got their own bedroom in the back. Well, not a bed, it's a bedroom, but it's an animal room. I use it for animals instead of a bedroom. they got their room in the back and then the isopods and the springtails got their room in the bathroom. Frograck: Right. Right? Right on. Yeah, I'm glad you also mentioned good ventilation when you're dealing with humidity. if the substrate is fairly damp but not soggy, I imagine salamanders will do well meeting their sort of like that microclimate of hiding under a log as far as humidity. But I know a lot of people in the amphibian hobby might have been coming from dart frogs tropical tree frogs, where you can start closing off ventilation quite a bit to increase humidity. ⁓ But for something like Salamanders, you said that would probably lead to mold. Joe's Salamanders: Yeah, I've had problems with like smagno moss getting kind of slimy and like if it's not you ⁓ well enough. ⁓ want your substrate to stay damp, not saturated. The best way to do your substrate is to have a gradient like one side dry and one side damp so they have a range to go when you're working with terrestrial setups. That's really the best way. Most of my implosures have some sort of gradient. Frograck: right on. All right, okay, the other big aspect, once you get appropriate housing parameters met for something like a salamander, you're gonna be feeding it regularly. What sort of ⁓ feeders do you use to keep your salamanders healthy? Joe's Salamanders: I've got all sorts of feeders. I've got some I buy, I've got some I culture. I've got different foods for the babies, different foods for the adults. I would say the primary diet for most of the animals that I house that are moving to new homes is crickets. Because crickets are the easiest to get and ⁓ most readily available. And they do well on crickets. personally think earthworms are a better diet. Earthworms can get expensive. I try to culture as many as I can of my own food. You know, I've got some bangs with earthworms. Also earthworms, quite often, ⁓ unless feeding with tongs, they'll just burrow down into the substrate. I recommend people who want to feed earthworms to their animals to put them in a plastic container like a shoebox plastic with a lid with no substrate, just a bare bottom. Frograck: Yeah, good point. Joe's Salamanders: and a couple worms so it's easier, you know, maybe put the animal in there overnight or something, you'll wake up the next day, the worms will be gone and they'll be fat. You know, it's easier if you have, you know, if you really need to like try to spot feed an animal worms, you don't have time to work with tongues. That's the best way to go about that. You only really need to worry about that in instances where an animal might stop eating or animals start looking skinnier. So for the most part, I don't have to do that too often, but if I need to feed them worms, Frograck: Right. Joe's Salamanders: you know, I'll take them out of their enclosure or you can spot feed them. I've had quite a few take worms from my fingers or from tongues. You know, quite a few people do that. some other, some other foods that I've worked with, are flies. They're pretty common food. ⁓ I've with the big ones and the little ones, the wingless ones. ⁓ I breed some, some, some small, some smaller foods, Some of the smaller foods I'm working with are Daphnia for like the babies. I've worked with Daphnia, I've cultured brine shrimp. I'm culturing right now rotifers, Daphnia ⁓ and worms. I got little culture on micro worms. They're really tiny. I think they're the same thing as nematodes or something like that from when I was reading. ⁓ Frograck: Okay. Are they aquatic or are they terrestrial? The micro worms. Joe's Salamanders: So these come in a culture of like oatmeal. They're for fish fry, for baby fish fry. That's where I found... Okay, yeah, so I don't know what their natural state is or natural environment, but the culture I got is a cup of oatmeal with little worms. been working with those. I've also cultured potting worms. That's another big food that I've been using this year is potting worms, little tiny white worms. Frograck: Okay. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yep. Joe's Salamanders: ⁓ they they work really good for babies and i'm leaning more towards those because they'll live in the water like when you're feeding your babies you can drop those and they'll wiggle around and stay alive for several days or some foods the work with well died or like frozen foods for example i've used blood worms that's another one you can use is frozen blood worms the frozen blood worms like the unneeded the uneaten food Will foul the water, you know, if you don't if you're not diligent if you can't get it cleaned out enough really working on my bioactivity this year and I've gotten my pepper shrimp population up and I've gotten now to where I've got enough pepper shrimp or they pretty much eat anything that's uneaten and I've got a lot more photosynthesis and plants going on so my systems are actually a lot more healthier. This is probably the best year I've had. I've come a long way with remodel because now I got a room Frograck: Cool, yeah. Joe's Salamanders: with all my animals and it's so much easier. got the space and everything's organized and it's coming a long way. know, like I said, I've been operating as a hobbyist, but like I've been selling a lot of animals this year and I see a real potential to make a business. You know, a lot of, a lot of these reptile vendors, so I do reptile conventions. That's my primary gig. A lot of these reptile vendors have been like, kind of like losing, you know, Frograck: Mmm. Joe's Salamanders: losing out a little bit the last couple years with the economy and stuff and something I got going for me is that I'm starting off so I don't have a lot of overhead and I'm kind of getting into it where the economy is at and where it's been at. So I'm actually doing really well. I've got a couple things going for me. One, you know, I don't have a lot of overhead. I'm just getting into it. But two, I'm also working with a niche animal with very little competition. My biggest competition is oxalotls. Frograck: Right. Right. Joe's Salamanders: And I sell a lot of oxalotls. Can never have enough oxalotls. Frograck: Okay. Yep. Sure. Sure. Yeah. They've, they've become very popular in recent years. They've been around for a long time, but people really, ⁓ really have caught onto them recently. ⁓ do you, you mentioned, I have one follow-up question about feeding, or just sort of housing when we're talking about very, very small species or very, very small juveniles that have transitioned out of the water and are living terrestrially. Joe's Salamanders: ⁓ yeah. Frograck: How do you house and feed them so they don't just get lost in the terrarium and never find food? Joe's Salamanders: That's a good question. know, they ⁓ grow pretty fast when they're at that size. And you're working with a lot of babies, you know, I might yield anywhere from like 50 to 100 babies a year on average, per species, you know. So some species I bred, I bred the spotted salamanders, I bred the marbled salamanders, I bred the two species anew, I bred oxalotls. And every time I breed one of these species, I try to yield as many as I can and I usually end up with about fifty to a hundred. You that's about how many I can feed and bring to mature or at least bring to sub-adult age to market so I can sell them. Frograck: Right, Cool. Joe's Salamanders: but I feed them fruit flies. At that stage fruit flies and pin crickets, some the larger species like spotted salamanders and tigers can go straight to pin crickets when they morph and leave the water. But some of the smaller species like the marbled salamanders, ⁓ I work with those guys with fruit flies, like they'll take the fruit flies. And I really had any... too hard at times. these guys, I've noticed like don't really burrow in captivity as much as they just like to ⁓ underneath objects on the surface, know, like sit underneath pieces of bark and sit under. I actually use a lot of cardboard in my enclosures. Cardboard's really good for simulating leaves and like forest litter and it's not very heavy. Frograck: Yep. Joe's Salamanders: You get a bunch of wood and stones and in your enclosures and stuff's like heavy and like could potentially harm your animals, know, moving like especially heavy rocks, you know, it's just so much easier to work with cardboard because it's so readily available. So I'll often have quite a few pieces of cardboard in most of my enclosures. And that's where a lot of my animals like to hide. Frograck: Right. Here's, let me share a little tip with you. This is, ⁓ if you go to like Home Depot or Lowe's, you can get pipe insulation. ⁓ I was concerned with like little baby newts, like marbled newts, also ⁓ toads. Like even a piece of cork bark, if I like ⁓ up the cork bark to check on them and put it back down, you can, you could accidentally crush them with the edge of the cork bark. ⁓ so, ⁓ Joe's Salamanders: ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect, I like that. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta be careful. Frograck: this foam weighs nothing. so even a teensy-tinesy little salamander, you, yeah, so I use, you know, it's not a natural bioactive object, but it works okay. I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure leaf litter and clean corrugated cardboard is a good idea too, yeah. ⁓ ⁓ interested in outdoor enclosures. ⁓ Outdoor ⁓ ⁓ Joe's Salamanders: That's perfect! ⁓ that's perfect, yeah. Okay. Frograck: has been around in the reptile hobby for a long time, but it's not widely embraced. And so I find it really interesting, whether it's salamanders or anything, I find it really interesting to hear from people who have some experience keeping outdoors. So could you tell me a little bit about how you started keeping outdoors and what sort of enclosures you use out there? Joe's Salamanders: Okay, yeah. So I was first introduced to outdoor keeping when I lived in Florida. lot of the snake breeders I knew down there actually bred their snakes outdoors in sheds. A of the frog breeders I knew down there bred their frogs outdoors in greenhouses. actually in that's a very common practice. People have been keeping salamanders and newts outdoors in Europe for decades. And honestly, if you keep the animals outdoors, that's the easiest way to breed them. You can keep them in a basement and try to simulate the environment. And there's been a lot of success with that. But I found that keeping them outdoors, like honestly, I haven't had any luck with breeding any of my animals inside. Even some of the more common species like oxalotls, I've never been able to breed them indoors. I've never been able to breed them when I actually tried to. I just put them outside. Frograck: Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: and let them do their thing and when the season changes and it's the right time of the year I get eggs out there and I just you know I go out there and collect the eggs and I bring them inside and hatch them out. Frograck: Awesome. Are you using large plastic containers or did you build anything out of masonry or wood? What ⁓ the enclosures look like? Joe's Salamanders: So I've actually got a little combination of stuff I'm using out there. I've got a, ⁓ pond, ⁓ refer to my enclosures as like micro ponds. My pond's like a 350 gallon watering trough, like an animal trough that I buried. And when you bury it in the ground like that, it stays ground temperature year round. And the bottom of my pond will stay like 55 degrees summer and winter. Frograck: Okay. Joe's Salamanders: Winter it might be a little bit colder, but they can handle the cold water. These animals can handle the water as long as it doesn't freeze solid. They can even handle a little bit of ice on top, which it doesn't freeze that much here where I live. But a couple of times a year there has been a little bit of ice on the top of the ponds out there, but it usually melts in a day or two. I just go out there and break it up. And I've never had any problems with all the animals I've kept outside. done actually the animals outdoors. Frograck: Nice. Joe's Salamanders: tend to do better than the animals indoors I would say. with some of them are more hard to keep. I found some species are easier to keep than others. Some are more similar. ⁓ biggest species I struggle with indoors is the marbled salamanders actually. The marbled salamanders seem to do so much better outdoors than they do indoors. ⁓ It's just easier to meet their natural requirements when you're them. Because we live in their natural habitat. Frograck: Right. Joe's Salamanders: I can walk out into the forest around my house and find marbled salamanders, spotted salamanders, some of these species just live and breed outside around here. Frograck: Right, that's awesome. So if you were given advice to a keeper who wants to set up an outdoor enclosure, one concern I have is like depending on where you would locate it, it might cook in the sun or it might flood during heavy rains. So what considerations do you think about when you're just like choosing where to put an outdoor enclosure? Joe's Salamanders: So you'll see I've taken steps. One of my enclosures is kind of under some trees, like where my pond is at. Then some of my other enclosures, I actually built like a roof, like put some plywood across the top and built a shade area. I've got my pond set up so that if the water overflows, it's not really gonna hurt the animals or anything. It's just gonna kind of float out of the pond. But I've got screen across the top to keep the animals inside. Frograck: Okay. Joe's Salamanders: and ⁓ the pond's a little unleveled so one part of the pond will get higher than the other so you have one part that will overflow a little bit and go through the screen but the other part of the pond's not all the way up so it's not like it's like drowning them underneath the screen here they have plenty of surface area but i put a lot of work into it i've used ⁓ some of the materials i've used i've rubber made containers i've used concrete and bricks i've used wood My main pond, like I said, it's a 350 gallon, rubber-made trough that I buried. then the other enclosures I got are like, it's a little concrete garden area. It's almost like a raised bed garden that I built with masonry bricks. And it's a really huge area. It's got a lot of soil and like just mass like... trying to think of the word I'm looking for. It's a big area of substrate that's kind of like a garden area and it holds ground temperature really well. I kind of built it up against a hill. I'll show you how it's built. You kind of see how, you know, it stays cool. Like if I stick my finger down in the ground in my outdoor terrestrial enclosures, it's like ground temperature. Like these salinators, they do great out there. It's in the shade. Frograck: Right. Joe's Salamanders: Even during the summer, you know, they can bury down and still stay pretty cool during the summer. So they do good year round in these enclosures. Yeah. Frograck: Yeah, they're like the ultimate being not but being right ⁓ in soil level. That's an microclimate that, like I said, even in the heat of the summer, they are choosing to stay relatively cool. What sort of things do you do to make the enclosures predator proof, like to keep, I don't know, like raccoons or something out of them? Joe's Salamanders: So the pond I got, I took almost like a chicken screen or a hog screen or a farm type screen that you would use for a cage. And I welded it, I had these little plastic, it's almost like a staple, like a little plastic welder. I just welded the screen to the top of the Rubbermaid, literally just melted it into the plastic. So the whole screen is just sealed across the rim of the pond. Frograck: Okay. Nice. Joe's Salamanders: basically melted in with plastic staples and I cut like a square so I can open the screen up like made a door. I use zip ties to secure it when I'm not opening and closing it and I gotta put a zip tie like every inch or so nice and tight and pull the screen tight so the animals can't get out. I actually I started off using native animals when I did these outdoor enclosures I Frograck: Gotcha. Joe's Salamanders: I experimented with these things with all native animals to see what could stay in there and what could get out. you know, if it's something I took out of my yard and just, doesn't matter if it gets loose, you know. But I found most the Ambistamus species aren't very good at climbing. They do really good in these enclosures. I've had some issues with like woodland, like the slimy salamanders, the Plethodontes. Frograck: Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: ⁓ slimy salamanders, grey cheek salamanders species like that are really good at climbing and sliding through crevices and those guys got right out so i don't keep anything like that but there's certain species i know that i can keep out there and now that i know what i can and can't i've gotten to where i'm starting to keep some foreign species out there like i've got the crested newts outside i've got the western tigers and i've got the rib newts outside Frograck: Okay. Joe's Salamanders: And for example, these rib newts and these crested newts, they're not very good climbers at all. These enclosures are big and the doors are at the very, very top. And there's like, there's just no way they could climb up and get out. You'll see how they're built to keep the animals in and keep the predators out. used the screen. That was your initial question, but to answer your initial question, screens, all my enclosures have screens to keep the animals out basically. Yeah. Frograck: Nice. Yeah, that's a really creative way of attaching the metal screen right to the top of plastic containers. I hadn't thought of that. I would have always thought like I'd have to build some tight fitting frame. ⁓ Joe's Salamanders: Yeah, if you get a plastic welder online for like 10 or 15 bucks, you can just weld the screen right to the rim of the container. Thank you. Frograck: That's a great idea. ⁓ And then do you do outdoors, they must have access to some insects that sort of naturally find their way into the enclosures. ⁓ do you do as far as feeding when you have the animals outdoors? Joe's Salamanders: Absolutely. So that's another thing, the animals outdoors, I don't have to feed nearly as often because there is a lot of insects. All my containers or enclosures, they've got some sort of animals. There's roly-polys, all sorts of ⁓ and just little bugs that live out there in most of my enclosures. But even the I'll start stuff like dragonfly larva. and different bugs will fall into the pond. You know, there's a little tree above the pond and there's like flowering, there's a little flowering bush sometimes. There's all sorts of little bugs flying around the bushes and you know, you'll see stuff fall into the pond all the time, all sorts of insects. So yeah, they do get access to a wide variety of diet that you can't, you just can't feed them indoor when you're keeping them outside like that. Absolutely. Frograck: Cool, cool. All right, ⁓ I'm especially interested in the marbled salamanders that you keep. think they're one of the top most attractive and interesting and good captive potential of all the North American salamanders. And they have a very unique reproductive strategy. So why don't you tell us a little bit about ⁓ marbled Joe's Salamanders: Okay. So your marbled salamanders are a ambystoma. They're a smaller species of ambystoma. They get about five inches. They're pretty girthy. They're one of the fatter. They get nice and fat. They're kind of the hardest, one of the harder ambystoma. I've noticed the tigers in the spot. It seemed to be easier to work with. They're also one of the more shy species. So when it comes to pets, they're actually not the best pet. Frograck: Mm. Yep. Joe's Salamanders: They are one of the prettier looking species, but they're just not very active. They mostly hide. You're not going to see them a lot. When it comes to the reproductive strategy, this is where they differ. ⁓ of salamanders, especially your imbestima, will go back to a vernal pool or a pond to lay their eggs during the rainy season. So these guys will actually lay their eggs in an area that floods and lay their eggs Frograck: Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: like on a hill where the water like will wash the eggs into a runoff area. You can find their eggs on under logs in their areas and they tend to spend quite a bit of time in these logs in their natural environments. I've noticed they tend to favor logs more than some of the other ⁓ ambistomas the tigers and the spotteds. Seems like marbles really like to spend most of their life inside really big logs and around really big logs. I don't know if they burrow down too deep like some of the other species, ⁓ but they'll lay their eggs in an area that's going to flood before the rains come. ⁓ instead of like little gelatinous eggs, they'll lay little eggs that have like almost like a little leather membrane that can, you know, be on a dry surface. Frograck: Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: and they'll just lay them ⁓ in a spot like they build a little nest, know, a little dome in the ground and it's nice and humid, you know, it'll be kind of damp, not really wet, but you know, they actually put a little care. You can tell like their little nest with their eggs is a little bit different than the rest of the enclosure. Frograck: Yeah, and long does the female stay near her eggs? Joe's Salamanders: she'll stay near them until the rains come and wash them away or until I collect them. I've bred them twice. ⁓ enclosure I got out here, I keep a colony about 10 to 15 of these guys out here and ⁓ they just lay eggs out there like around November. I've gotten eggs two years in a row now from these guys. Yeah. Frograck: Yeah. Cool, yeah. All right, you mentioned that you vend ⁓ reptile expos when you have some captive bred salamanders to sell. How do people the expos react to salamanders being available? Because ⁓ it's probably not they're expecting to see. They're probably expecting to see geckos and snakes, maybe some dart frogs and tree frogs. So what's the general... Reaction you get from people and do you need to do a lot of education for new customers when they buy from you? Joe's Salamanders: So, it's ⁓ off the charts honestly, like lot of people don't expect to see them and you know like you said, ⁓ pretty rare, you don't see a lot of salaries. Now lot of people ⁓ familiar with oxalotls and I do carry oxalotls regularly so a lot of people come up and the first thing they'll see is the oxalotls and they'll know exactly what they are but then they'll notice like the nudes and they'll ⁓ what is this? And you know, ⁓ For some reason the Nudes into Salamanders just don't sell as good as the OXALOTLs. I keep OXALOTLs. I'd like to see more awareness. Now I say ⁓ the people do know what they are tend to be pretty educated on them. They're not too often recognized or known, but the people who do know what they are usually know quite a bit about them from what I've noticed. ⁓ They'll know that their skin is permeable and you're not really supposed to handle them. You know, I handle my animals when my hands are clean and you know, I'll rinse my hands off in aquarium water. When you're working with a lot of animals, the quickest thing to do is just rinse your hands off in aquarium water. And you know, you can handle your animals like that. I don't have gloves that I put on and off every time because I just got so many animals I'm working with and you know, I'm just very cautious of my hands. Frograck: Mm-hmm. Joe's Salamanders: That's something that you become cautious of when you're working. You know, I'm sure it's probably the same with frogs or any kind of animal with permeable skin, you know, like that. I'm trying to think, what was the question? Frograck: Yeah. I was just thinking about how customers react. My other question for that is, are there any common misconceptions that people at the expos have about salamanders that you need to sort of correct them on? Joe's Salamanders: ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, there's quite a few people that want to pick them up and touch them, but those are usually people that don't know what they are or don't have any experience. Yeah, like a lot of people never seen them before will ask me if I can, if they can touch them or if they can pet them. And, you know, I've even had a few people reach out and I've had to put, not touch signs on a lot of my little, you know, tubs that I put out on the table, you know, recent, recent, like in the last year or so it's just because I Frograck: Yeah. Right on. Joe's Salamanders: You know, there's always like one or two people that want to reach down there and just like, no, you can't do that. You know, it's not good. I don't know where their hands have been. just, yeah, yeah, it's not a leopard gecko. That's for sure. Frograck: Yep. It's not a- It's not a leopard gecko. Yeah. Cool. All right, well, now you mentioned that you could take your phone and give us a tour of both your indoor and outdoor enclosures. Let us see what sort of space you have that you're working with your enclosures. So if we want it, yeah, let's transition to that now. Joe's Salamanders: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, so here's the pond I was talking about. We'll start off with this one. So this is like a 350 gallon animal trough. And you can see how the screen is set up here to keep the predators out. And here's these little plastic welds I was telling you about, if you can see that. So yeah, I just welded that straight and folded over. And then the rocks. Frograck: Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: The rocks are heavy enough they kinda add a little bit of support to security. So these guys, these guys can't get out of that. You can see how tight this is here. I mean that's gonna hurt a salamander pretty bad if he's gonna try to climb through that wire there. But they honestly, they can't even get up here. They can't really climb. But I've got this island here. So this island I made is like a rubber made tub that's turned upside down. And I took some spray foam and put like a little barrier around the edge so could put some soil in there. And I got a rock there weighing it down and there's a little hide there. But I got a little aisle in here so they can come out of the water. you notice I got a lot of these plastic tubes hanging here. I actually put these out here for eggs. They like to lay their eggs on these things and it makes it easy to collect them. Yeah. Frograck: Yeah. Nice, yep. Joe's Salamanders: So where in nature they would normally lay their eggs on a plant, they'll lay their eggs on this and then I can just take it out. Take it out. Frograck: I know I only ever observe spotted salamanders where I live, but I always see the eggs attached to a stick. Yep. Joe's Salamanders: Yes, yes, that's pretty common. They'll attach them to plants, sticks. The Spotted like to attach them to branches that fall off into the water. You'll find a branch or a stick in the water with the Spotted eggs. And I've also bred the Spotted. So some of the species I bred in this pond right here successfully, I bred the Oxalotls, bred the Western Tigers, and I bred the Spotted Salamanders in this pond. ⁓ Frograck: Nice. Joe's Salamanders: For the spotted salamanders, just put them out here around December, January. start migrating to the vernal pools around January in area. But same thing for the tigers. A lot of people say you gotta winter these ⁓ ambistomas, which means put them outdoors or chill them for the winter. Like put them through their... Normal bermation that they would go through during the wintertime I suppose so I put mine outdoors usually around December Some species I leave out here year-round some might I bring in and now I move my animals around a lot You know when I rotate them, you know, I might have oxalotls in here one year and tigers in here the next year So this is the first micro pond, I guess you could say. So I'll bring you over here to this enclosure I built. So this wall was here with the house. I don't know how well you can see that wall there. It's like this brick wall was on the patio. When I moved here, it just had a wall there. And I suppose that wall's some sort of retention wall or something, because it's kind of built on a slope, you can see. But you can see how the ground's uneven there. And that actually does a lot of ⁓ heat sinking with my enclosures, because I got all that earth up against the back of it, my enclosures. all I did was get some bricks. There were a bunch of bricks on the back of this property, and I just put up another wall here and closed it in. And then I framed out the top with wooden screen to keep the predators out. And I got two enclosures out here with little water areas. for aquatic species. this one has crested newts. And this is just a 20 gallon aquarium that I buried. And it does the job perfectly. I got eggs from these guys last year. I'm expecting eggs any day There's been a lot of activity. They've been doing like mating rituals. I don't know if you can see there's a big white crested newt on the bottom there. Yes, so that's my male ⁓ been he's been courting the females quite a bit. I've getting courtship from the crested newts and the rib newts every day. And honestly, usually lay eggs by now. It's kind of a late season. I think it's because we had a little bit of a colder winter in this area. So I got a single solitary egg. They just laid, that's the first egg that I've seen this year from these guys. ⁓ Frograck: Nice. Yeah, so they'll pick up egg production now that they've started. Joe's Salamanders: What a perfect timing. I was hoping that we'd get an egg for this and it was, it couldn't have been any more perfect. That's the first egg I've seen. So yes, so this is, ⁓ this is where I keep some newts. This next one is where I actually keep the marbled salamanders. ⁓ this is just a terrestrial setup. Like, you know, they don't need any, any kind of water like we talked about already. So this is a good. Frograck: Nice. Joe's Salamanders: good setup for marble salamanders just a bunch of debris and some wood plenty of spaces. I'm sure we'll see a couple somewhere. There's one right there. There's a nice one right there. Frograck: ⁓ yeah, nice. And so they're under those boards, under those logs, and the females will just create a little depression in the soil, and that's where you might find eggs. Yep. Joe's Salamanders: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they'll just they'll just like do like a little something like that. Where they'll just make like a little depression. Yeah, and just guard the nest. And there are other species out west like the climbing salamanders, the arboreal salamanders. I'm sure you probably heard of those. Those are the ones you see pictures of often that have the really nasty teeth. So the arboreal salamanders lay eggs on Frograck: Yep. Yep. Joe's Salamanders: and dry nests like the marbles. And there are several species of incintinas out west that also lay eggs. woodland salamanders, ⁓ the slimes and the gray cheeks we were talking about, the Plethodontes, they'll lay eggs on land too. They don't an aquatic phase. Those are interesting salamanders because they don't go through an aquatic phase. But everything I've got here goes through an aquatic phase. Frograck: Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: So yeah, you can see the cardboard I was telling you about. like to use cardboard. The Java moss, this stuff is great substrate. But yeah, this is a perfect enclosure for marbled salamanders. you know, they live around here in this area. I'm just taking them from their native natural outdoor and putting them in a little setup, you know, so that they lay eggs. But... Honestly, I haven't worked with any wild animals in about six or seven years. When I first moved here, I was collecting some wild animals around here, but I've gotten to where everything I'm working with now is captive bred. Even the marbled salamanders that I don't breed myself, I've managed to locate another breeder. a guy here in North Carolina who's a salamander biologist ⁓ his name is David Beamer. Frograck: Mm-hmm. Joe's Salamanders: and ⁓ he's a molecular biologist who has a ⁓ really nice collection he's got just about every domestic species you can think of he's got a huge basement he's got everything we got native plus a bunch of species from out west ⁓ yeah the any breezy guys ⁓ ⁓ i was able to purchase i think i purchased thirty marbled salamanders from him two years ago so Frograck: Cool, yeah. Joe's Salamanders: There are other people breeding them besides me, I'm not the only one. Frograck: Right on. Joe's Salamanders: And this is the last enclosure. I got rib newts in this one. And this is just a rubber made tub. It's buried. And you know, these ponds, they stay nice and cold. Like if you put your hand, it's nice and cool. Even ⁓ the heat of the day during the summer, stays nice and cool in here. You know, it'll stay ground temperature for the most part. Frograck: Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: These guys will also come out and burrow up under these stones. it gets too hot out, it stays nice and cool up underneath these stones. I don't know if we got any. think they're all in the pond right now because they've been courting each other. But yeah, I don't think there's any underneath the stones right now. There might be these. Yeah, they're all in the. They're all in the pond there. You can see two of them right there. And then there's some hiding up in those rocks there. I got a wild type male on these and then my females are all leucistics so I should get both babies. I bred these last year but I didn't have a male so the eggs were sterile. But I've got a wild type male now and they've been courting so I should get both different color morphs from the babies. Frograck: Gotcha. Joe's Salamanders: Yeah, you can see how I frame this out. This is getting old. I actually built this about five years ago now and it's starting to show aging But it's holding up. It's still it still keeps the animals in keeps them safe keeps the predators out You know, I can't can't get anything in here. We got like all sorts of predators around here I kind of live out in the woods. So, you know, we got foxes and skunks and you know all sorts of possums and snakes and stuff like that but haven't had any problems. I a few oxalotls come up missing from the pond there when I first set it up. I didn't put that screen on the top for the first couple weeks and I'm I think one of my cats might have got the oxalot one of the ox I had a few oxalotls but ever since I got the screen set up I haven't had any kind of problems like that at all. Frograck: Great. Yep. Cool. Want to take us inside and show us some of your indoor setups? Joe's Salamanders: Yeah. So I got a little work area. I got my 3D printers here and I got my animal room back here. And I have not actually been in here today. I'm gonna turn the lights on in here. But right now I've got a lot of babies. I've got baby oxalotls and ribnewts that I'm feeding. So I just set this room up a couple weeks ago. I went through remodel like I said. This is a bedroom but I turned it into an animal room. And I'll go through here and just give you a little tour. I a little bit of clutter here I'm dealing with, but underneath here I've got, these are all babies I'm raising. These are baby oxalotls. So I got about 15 babies in each one of these tubs here. I'm you can see that there. These guys are doing real good. They're eating. Those are some of the potting rooms in there was telling you about. There's that big white ball there. Yeah, I picked those out of the bins that I culture them in and that's what they're eating. these are all babies here. These are baby newts in this one up here. They're a little bit smaller. These guys take a little bit longer to start putting size on. But they're eating Daphnia. There's one of those worms there. You can see that white worm wiggling around there. Frograck: Okay, yeah. Joe's Salamanders: what they that's what they eat when their babies they can they can eat those the oxalotls can eat those as soon as they hatch But ⁓ the the newts ⁓ primarily Daphnia. That's about the only thing I've been able to feed them. That's small enough ⁓ have used brine shrimp in past years but the thing I don't like about brine shrimp is that it will die ⁓ you can't really see it so when it dies it falls to the bottom and Frograck: Mm-hmm. Joe's Salamanders: The uneaten brine shrimp goes kind of unnoticed because it's so small and it ends up fouling the water. You also get a lot of the egg shells from the brine shrimp when you hatch out brine shrimp and the egg shells end up collecting and making a mess. They'll start building up and I think those also contribute to some water fouling conditions. Yeah, I'm doing really good. This is a really good year. The tanks look a little dirty. There's some silt and stuff. You know, I use a lot of pond water. I'll show you, uh, like the tub I get my Daphne out of. It's got a lot of silt and debris in it. So the water's kind of like, you know, kind of dirty on the bottom, but it's a very healthy system. I got the plants there. These guys are doing really good. I've hatched out about 130 eggs in the last two weeks. And I've only found maybe two or three dead babies out of all of them. So I've got a really good yield rate I'm getting so far this year. And most of my juveniles so far ⁓ almost switched on larger foods like blood worms and the potting worms. Like the Daphnia has to sustain them the first couple days because they're so small. But after about three or four days, ⁓ Frograck: Wow. Joe's Salamanders: a week they start getting big enough to eat some of the larger foods. blood worms ⁓ be fed to them. That's an easily available food source. I used blood worms for quite a few years because you can go to a pet co or a pet supermarket and find those anywhere you know for the most part. But I don't think as nutritious and I really I'm having a Frograck: Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: a lot better luck with these potting worms. Like I said, the potting worms stay alive. They'll wiggle around for a couple days in the tank until they get eaten. So they never really die and foul the water like some of the other foods like the brine shrimp or the frozen blood worms. But here's some... Go ahead, sorry. Frograck: Right. Another thing about, let me chime in there. Another thing about brine shrimp, I agree with you that they die pretty quick and they foul the water. And also the larva don't grow very fast if all they're eating is brine shrimp. And so it takes forever for them to move up to a better food. Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: Yup, it does, it does. Here's some juvenile rib newts. These guys are for sale. My inventory is actually pretty low, but this is where I keep my animals that bring to market is in this room. I've got a rack behind me with my ambistamas. So yeah, these are my rib newts. Here's some crusted newts I got. ⁓ one's a juvenile. That's one of the ones that I bred last year. That's the father right there. I took him out because he was outside with the females, but I wanted to breed my leucistic exclusively. So I removed him. Yeah. In here I got some, I got one red and one spring. So these guys, I had these guys since they were larvas. I thought they were both reds. It's very hard to tell when they're larvas, but they turned out, one turned out to be a spring. There's the spring there. Frograck: Right, okay. Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: They've been tank mates for many many years and a lot of people don't like mixing species This isn't something I make a habit of but because of this situation these guys ran and also They're about the same size. They're not big enough to cannibalize each other and these guys do cohabitate in the same environment In the wild so as long as they're not hurting each other or trying to eat each other They've been cohabitating for a couple years I would like to get more of these animals because these are some animals I'd like to breed. I really want to breed the reds, but I just haven't collected enough of them. I don't go out collecting hardly ever. I try to get everything legal. It's been many years since I went out looking for anything. So I've had these guys for many, many years. ⁓ I would like to try to go out looking for more and try to find some more so could have a colony. But. Frograck: Yeah. Right. Joe's Salamanders: That's those guys. Then over here I've got my Ambistema on this rack. down here, sorry about the little clutter I got. Some spotted salamanders in there. See those guys okay? Frograck: yeah, yep. Joe's Salamanders: Okay. this is a good example of enclosure like I was telling you about. You see lots of spring tails in there and the cardboard. And of ventilation. Actually, I should move these. I put those there temporary, but they're blocking the ventilation. You don't want to leave something like that more than a couple of days there because I got the holes poked in the top. And then I got, ⁓ think are the tigers. So this is a western tiger here. some melanistic gum. They're actually a more rare species of tiger. They only occur sporadically far out west. ⁓ Very few sporadic locations where these guys can be found out west. So these are the guys that I bring with Frograck: Okay. Right. And like you said, tiger salamanders, like you said, tiger salamanders make pretty good pets, huh? Because they sort of react to their keeper. Like when you open the lid and come in with food, they sort of perk up and pay attention. Joe's Salamanders: Absolutely, the tiger salamanders are very reactive very responsive got a lot of personality, you know a guy locally that has some in his pet store ⁓ every time he goes to feed them they come and run up to the side of the tank and He them there as store animals. He doesn't want to sell him. He's had him for many years, but those they're they're awesome. They're very active They perk up and look at you like it's like very very much like a lizard like a bearded dragon or you know something with a little more personality. And last but not least up here is where I've got some more marbles. These were outside but I brought them back inside after I bred them this year. But this is what basically all my embistament enclosures look pretty similar. Can you see that? There's the marbles I was showing you. the same kind of setup that I used. Frograck: moss and potting soil, places to hide. Joe's Salamanders: Yeah, now they might be burrowed down here. There's one, there's one back there. Let see. Frograck: Gotcha. Yeah, I see him. Joe's Salamanders: So there's about five of them in here. They're just hiding. And then this is the tub for Daphnia that I was telling you about. So this tub here, I actually had this outside for many, many months. And it's got a bunch of leaf debris and silt and stuff. as soon as it started to warm up here, about two weeks ago, we got our first warm day. The Daphnia bloomed really good, so I just dragged this thing inside and I actually got a heater in there. And the Daphnia have been staying pretty active. You can look on the side there. I just scraped the side of this thing with a brine shrimp net. And it's got Daphnia, rotifers, all sorts of little things crawling around. it's been enough to feed the animals ⁓ when first born to. At least get them big enough to where they're eating bigger food. Frograck: Nice. Yeah, being able to have access to Daphnia is a huge part of raising newts and salamanders. That's awesome. Joe's Salamanders: Yes. Absolutely, it's one of, I think it's one of the best foods. I've also got an old hot tub outside that we're in the process of breaking down. We got a handy guy that started to take it apart last week, but for the time being, it's got a bunch of green water and a bunch of Daphnia. And I can go out there with the brine shrimp net and just collect hundreds and hundreds of little Daphnia with a couple swipes. Yeah. So, ⁓ that's pretty much the animal. I got, you know, Frograck: Thank Nice. Nice, that's great. Thank Joe's Salamanders: lots of room to grow it's a little cluttered in here I'm still working on organizing it but I'm thinking about setting up some more tubs here as these guys get bigger I'm going to be setting up more tubs to partition and divide them and separate them as they outgrow the enclosures they're in but I'll be bringing I'll start bringing these guys to to market next month some of these baby ox lotto's will be big enough to sell By by by next month that the biggest ones will probably be about three inches in a month or so Yeah, they'll go through growth spurts they won't all be that big most of them will still be too small but About a month from now. I got a show booked ⁓ I'll probably be able to pick out like at least my four or five biggest ones will probably be ready And then last but not least, I'll show you the isopod room. So the bathroom is where I keep the isopods and the springtails. I've got about 20 different species of isopods in here and different species of springtails. That's something that I'm really growing an area I'm growing in. I really like the ⁓ springtails. getting into like the more colorful springtails. I got some of these orange ones. I'm culturing they're doing pretty good I've sold some of these guys don't know if you can see they're really tiny but yeah ⁓ an orange orange I got I got five different species of springtail and like different species of isopods I work mostly with armadillums Frograck: Yep, we can see him. Joe's Salamanders: Porcelios and the cuberus. Those are the three main genuses I got. I got a couple species of dwarf isopods too. But I really like the dwarf isopods for bioactive enclosures. I think ⁓ the dwarf isopods, like the dwarf roly polys, they kind of fill a niche somewhere between the springtails and the big roly polys or the big eyes. Like the really small... Dwarf isopods are really good at being able to get up in small areas and clean and just kind of fill a niche that some of the other animals don't get. They're actually pretty pre-elevant. can become a nuisance if you're not too careful with those guys. I've got some enclosures the dwarf isopods that they've gotten into that was unintentional. Frograck: Yeah. Joe's Salamanders: But I've had really good luck. I would say like 95 % of my isopod bins are thriving and reproducing. I got one or two bins here and there that I struggle with. Mostly, there's a few kubaris species I've struggled with. I'm still trying to get down the parameters for those guys. I've got some kubaris that are doing really good, like the papayas and the panda kings. I've got some red pandas. And then I've had other Kuberas like the rubber duckies I've tried and I had a colony for about a year and I could never get any babies from them. I don't know what I did wrong. But this is an area my business that's growing. Isopods are really popular right now and I do good off of these guys. Between the salamanders and the isopods, Frograck: and Joe's Salamanders: I'm doing pretty good, like I can't complain. know, compared to where the industry's at and where a lot of other people are, I'm actually thriving. Yeah. Frograck: That's great, that's great. Cool. All right, if you wanna bring your phone back over to your sit down area and we'll wrap up our conversation. for showing us around. Joe's Salamanders: Yeah, sounds good. ⁓ yeah. Frograck: Cool, thanks for showing us around, Joe. It was really helpful seeing your outdoor enclosures. I learned that making sure they're partially or fully sunk into the ground makes a huge difference for salamanders to probably moderate the And then I liked, you know, ⁓ one thing I was was worrying about that the outdoor enclosure is getting too hot for a salamander, but with your brick masonry work that you did and then the shade. this sort of plywood shade that you created over them. I think that gives people a good idea of what's possible for keeping outdoors. The other thing I liked is ⁓ just the idea of keeping a native species and keeping it outdoors. Like you said, nature a lot of the work for you as long as you set them up right initially. And then you get to enjoy the animal as a captive right in its own native range. And so I think almost everyone ⁓ in America has native salamanders and so they could do something like what you have going on and keep at least one of their common native species. So that's really great. Joe's Salamanders: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I hope somebody learned something and maybe took some notes and maybe I can help somebody get into this and do the same thing I'm doing. Frograck: Cool. Right on. Do you want to tell us where can people find you online? Where do you primarily have an online presence? Joe's Salamanders: So right now, mostly Facebook. I've got a page, Joe Salamanders. It's a fairly new page. I actually had a group for many years and it had about 600, 700 people. But I got tired of moderating the group and my goals have kind of changed over the year. When I set up the group, I was kind of doing this as a hobbyist. But now that I'm getting out and doing it as a business a little bit more, I'm doing the conventions and I'm making a little bit of money. I felt like a page was more representative of what I'm doing now. And I got tired of moderating and keeping on top of the group. I don't really have time for, you know, all the chat and stuff like that. know, I got a page now so I can post pictures of my animals. Real just find me on Facebook. It's Joe Salamanders. I did have a bit shoot channel. I haven't it or maintained it in like four or five years, but I posted about 20 videos to bit shoot. If you look up Joe Salamanders, I've actually got some pictures of my outdoor enclosures when I first set them up. And I've also got, was a video of my spotted salamanders laying eggs out or right after they laid eggs outside. I don't know if that video is still up or if it was on. It might've, I might've put that video elsewhere, but There might be a video of my old spot at Salamanders laying eggs on Bitshoot as well. Frograck: Gotcha. And if any listeners are local to you in North Carolina, what are some of the reptile expos that you vend at? Joe's Salamanders: a regular at the Charlotte Repticon. ⁓ do Charlotte Repticon every like three months or so. It's like a quarterly event. Asheville, I'm in Asheville pretty regularly. I'm starting to get out of the area and do more shows out of town. So some of the areas that I've done besides Charlotte and Asheville, I've been in Fayetteville, I've been in Hickory. Frograck: Okay. Joe's Salamanders: I plan on going back to those towns. Asheville's becoming a pretty normal I also am trying to get out of state a little bit more. did do a couple of, I did one show in Knoxville and I did one show in South Carolina and Charleston. So I'm trying to get out of ⁓ state and do shows. That's another reason why I'm kind of working more towards exotics than natives because I want to be able to go to Nashville or go to South Carolina and go. And the thing is like, I can't sell marbled salamanders in Tennessee because they're a native species. I can't sell spotted salamanders. You know, I first started doing this and I was working with all native species and that's fine here in Charlotte. I can sell these guys here because of the laws. But you know, to go to Tennessee or go South Carolina or Virginia, I got to have exotic species that aren't native like the rib newts, the crested newts, the oxalotls. Frograck: Okay. Yep. Joe's Salamanders: So I'm really trying to like focus more on some more exotics. When I started off, was exclusively a native species, all natives, and I really didn't even want to get into the exotics. But you know, business needs call for, you know, I got to do what I got to do if I really want to make money off this because, you know, I'm not really like chasing the dollar, but the more money I make off this business, I invest everything back into the business. Frograck: ⁓ yeah. Joe's Salamanders: When I do a convention, I take all my money and put it back in. So the more money I make, the bigger my business can grow and the more animals, the more money I got from my animals. So it's about, really just about maintaining what I got and growing it. i've almost gotten my way up to about one show a month i was doing one show a month this last year but my inventory got really low recently as i was just i was selling so many animals so i had to take a little bit of time off my last show was december my next show is april so i took four months off to ⁓ kinda rebuild my inventory everything was getting low my general goods like my jewelry and my 3d prints and that stuff was getting low I got a lot of plush dolls I sell like little video game plush dolls like little niche plush dolls yeah like oddities like little skulls ⁓ I get like little skulls and put them in a jar and sell them on my you know I get a couple tables now but make more money off of the other merchandise than I do the animals Frograck: Yeah, yeah. Joe's Salamanders: So I kind of use the animals at the conventions to get some of this other stuff in like jewelry and stuff and make a little bit You know actually make a little bit of money where I'm just kind of breaking even on the animals quite a bit The animals have the opportunity. The best profit for animals ⁓ is breeding and raising them. I've gotten to where sold so many animals, I have to buy from other breeders because I sell everything I breed and I run out. And when you're buying from other breeders, you know, I don't like to lowball people. I try to give people the best deal, but you you're buying with intent to turn a profit. So, you know, you try to get the people down on, I try to buy bulk. And you know, I haven't had the last like another thing about this hobby, it can be very random. You know, I had a couple of years where I did really good and turned a lot of lot of babies. And then the last couple of years, I didn't turn a lot of babies. Like last year, I think I produced like 25 tigers and five newts last year is a horrible year last year. You know, it's just that's where you make most your money when you're making money off the animals is the ones that you're breeding, you know, so. Frograck: Yeah. Right. Joe's Salamanders: I'm off to a good start this year. All these babies I showed you today are doing really good. And I'm pretty confident I'm going to have a good year this year. Frograck: Awesome. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I can relate to that sometimes. Like especially with my Japanese fire-bellied newts. I've had boom years where I get like 75, 80 babies. And then a lot, a lot of years where I get none, none whatsoever. So I can relate to that. Yep. Yeah. And what you said about the laws is very interesting too. think state, state by state laws are what hold back native species from being common in the hobby. And Joe's Salamanders: It's very random. Yeah. Yes, I agree. Frograck: And I'm not necessarily complaining. A lot of the state laws are good. They have good intentions and they do have workarounds. know it's really like you mentioned your out of state expos, all the states that ⁓ nearby me that I can sell animals at, they all just ⁓ ban. You're not allowed to sell anything native. And assume that's because they're worried that if they allow native sales, people will just be poaching from the wild ⁓ to a buck. Joe's Salamanders: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Frograck: And so good intention to the laws. The laws are there for a reason. I definitely support protecting native wildlife. But almost all states, if it's not an endangered species, I think the very common law is that if you hold a fishing license, you're allowed to collect a few and keep them in captivity just fine. And so while native amphibians and reptiles might not make for the best business move, like you mentioned, because you can't mass produce and sell them easily. ⁓ They make really great opportunity for anyone to keep something that's native to where they live. so that's something I, yeah, something I want to encourage. Joe's Salamanders: Yeah, absolutely. You always see people posting online how they found an animal in their yard and want to know how to take care of it. That's very common with salamanders. I almost every day I'll see somebody in a salamander group that found a salamander in their yard or their basement and ask questions about it. And like you just said, that's perfect for keeping a native species in your area. Frograck: Right. Yep, yep. And I remember me and when I was a kid, I was always flipping logs, but all I would ever find is red-backed salamanders where I live. But there was a day when maybe I was like eight or nine years old, my grandfather had found a spotted salamander in his basement. It had somehow ⁓ into the basement and he brought that over for me. ⁓ I took care of it for like maybe a month or so, fed it some worms. But a little kid, first time seeing a spotted salamander, that was really exciting for me. And so ⁓ even though it was sort of and then returned to the wild, it still a very worthwhile experience for me. And I'm sure a lot of kids nowadays could benefit from keeping something that, you know, and learning husbandry that way, learning, ⁓ researching and finding out what the animal really needs. If you're going to take it out of the wild, really ⁓ put in the effort to learn what it needs. So that's great. All right, Joe, well, thank you so much for joining us today. Joe's Salamanders: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Frograck: For the audience, please like, subscribe and share. I really appreciate feedback about the podcast. One of the most helpful things that you guys can do is ⁓ drop me an email. If you think that there was a question that you hoped I would have asked that you thought of while you were listening to an episode, but it's not something that I engaged the guest with, go ahead and drop me an email, frograc at gmail.com. Give me feedback like that. It'll make me a better interviewer, a better host for the message and help get. Joe's Salamanders: Goodbye. Goodbye. Frograck: the word out about the Frog Rack podcast. If you guys want to follow Joe on Facebook, there is a link in the comments. So thank you everyone for listening, goodbye.